


the moon, the stars, and the darkness in between

by nickahontas



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (But no hogwarts), Black Hermione Granger, Divination, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Knockturn Alley, M/M, Marauder’s Era, Master of Death Harry Potter, Multi, Parseltongue, Polyamory, Potions, Second War with Voldemort, Threesome - F/M/M, Triad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:16:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28313673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickahontas/pseuds/nickahontas
Summary: A werewolf, a seer, and a madman all fall in love while fighting a war, but they’re all too wrapped up in themselves to appreciate what they have until it falls apart.—————————“The dance between darkness and light will always remain— the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars.” - C. Joybell C.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Sirius Black, Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood, James Potter/Lily Evans, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54





	the moon, the stars, and the darkness in between

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I asked about this plot bunny in my other fic and it seems like there’s some interest in it, so here we are!
> 
> This fic features a seer who grew up in Knockturn Alley and joins the war against Voldemort. Though the prologue is a Hogwarts party, the fic begins during the first war and jumps to the second. But don’t worry! Canon will change after she meets Harry. 
> 
> Just a heads up that there won’t be any a/b/o or mating dynamics, but there will be a little bit of werewolf/pack psychology. There are packs in canon, so I think there was a lot Remus was denying himself a lot more than he revealed in the books. 
> 
> I’ve done a lot of research into real world divination and I’m excited to work that into the HP verse. This fic also expands on wizarding society, Knockturn Alley in particular. Here, Diagon and Knockturn are just two boroughs of Wizarding London. 
> 
> I want more experience writing romance (but there will be plenty of war/plot/politics) and to live out my MMF dreams so here we are. Thank you for reading!

**2 June, 5th year**

A seventh year Hufflepuff shoots Remus an incredulous glance. Which is fair enough. It isn’t every teenager that walks into a party with his own personal stash of firewhiskey. The first bottle is already a quarter empty and Remus hardly feels it. He knows, by way of painfully expensive experimentation, that it takes two and half liters for him to get properly sloshed. And Remus intends to get pissed off his arse tonight.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Remus and his friends who organized the end of year party. The culprits are none other than the graduating Ravenclaws. They’ve done some clever charm work to make an old classroom in the Divination Tower mostly undetectable. It won’t keep the likes of Dumbledore or Flitwick away, but Filch will be none the wiser.

“Wow,” Peter says, gaping around.

“Wow,” Remus agrees.

The classroom has been transformed into an eclectic sort of club. In juxtaposition to the beaten and worn furniture arranged throughout the room, a brand new disco ball dangles from the ceiling in all of its blinding glory. Desks have been transformed into a bar in the far corner and someone- probably Cresswell, who’s going on to get a Charms mastery- has managed to get a muggle speaker system to work with a wizarding phonograph. A girl begins fiddling with a record and Remus immediately digs in his pockets. He manages to find his earplugs at the same time Led Zeppelin starts blaring into the room.

“They working alright, mate?” James asks.

Remus nods, taking another swig out of his bottle. James and Sirius got together and invented a pair of earplugs that block out sounds higher than a certain decibel while magnifying sounds around the human range. Remus can now attend parties and cinemas without his ears bleeding.

If the difficulties of being a werewolf were limited to once a month, he might not hate it so vehemently. It’s the little things that make it so unbearable; loud music, alcohol tolerance, insatiable appetite. Reduced life expectancy. Add traumatic full-body transformations to the mix and it’s enough to turn anyone into a mindless monster.

“Oi! None of that!”

Sirius appears out of nowhere, his warm hands cupping Remus’s face. This close Remus can make out dark blue specks in the endless gray of his eyes. 

“It’s over, Moony! OWLs are done, classes are over! We’re free! No moping tonight. I forbid it.”

“Well, if you forbid it,” Remus says drily.

Sirius pats his cheek.

“Listen to me. You are going to dance and sing and song a pretty girl and a handsome boy and absolutely not mope.”

Remus steps back far enough to take a long, pointed swig from the bottle, never breaking eye contact. His friend- his beautiful, ridiculous friend- lets out a deafening roar and thrusts his fist in the air.

“THE WOLF IS OUT TONIGHT!”

An answering cry breaks out from everyone that’s heard, though they haven’t got a clue what they’re cheering for. That tends to happen a lot around Sirius and James.

Peter’s boyish face splits into a wide, almost nefarious grin.

“Excellent,” James hisses, the same dark excitement spreading across his features.

“To the bar, gents!” Peter orders.

The marauders dutifully trail after him, basking in the dreamy sighs and nervous grimaces that track their movements.

James gets drunk first, the lightweight that he is. Wherever James goes, Sirius is quick to follow, so he is the next to fall into a drunken oblivion. Peter is next. He has a surprisingly high tolerance for these sorts of things, a fact that he keeps hidden. No one suspects shy, apple cheeked Peter.

Remus is last, of course. He doesn’t lose his inhibitions until the second bottle and even then he has to give himself over to it. Strip away the defenses. Lower his hackles. Stop controlling every word and movement and smile in order to appear as non-threatening as possible. Remus gives himself over to the dark, pulsing atmosphere of the room, to the dark, throbbing creature inside of him.

Despite that, he doesn’t kiss a pretty boy or handsome girl (or was it the other way around?), even with Moony so close to the surface. He won’t do that. No one knows how much blood and saliva it takes to turn a wolf and accidents happen. Knowing his luck, he’d slip and fall onto broken glass mid-shag and spread his lycanthropy in the most anticlimactic way known to wizardkind.

Remus tells James this when he tries to drag him into a game of spin the bottle.

“Oh come off it, Moon-ny!” He hiccups. “Jus’ a snog. Not even, maybe. They might just wanna kiss instead.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, mate.”

“Oi, I didn’ mean it like that. Yer a fit bloke. Indent-intent-...intimidatin’ is all.” He looks absurdly proud of finally getting the word out.

Unbidden, the memory of Zuzana Prikrylova’s nervous confession comes to mind. She’d accosted him on the grounds last autumn and said she wanted to talk about Sirius Black. Remus had cursed himself for getting his hopes up. Pretty girls didn’t come to Remus for Remus.

_“Not like that!” Upon seeing the crestfallen look on his face, panic had wrestled control over her tongue. “I’m not here to get in his robes or something. Not that I don’t not want to, mind you, but I’d like to get in your robes too! Everyone would. Sirius is first, of course, can’t deny that. But then you’re next and then James. Oh, fuck, I’m rambling aren’t I? I always ramble when I’m nervous. Sign of extroversion, you know?”_

After that, she’d babbled on about Sirius’s brother and getting into the Black family library, but he’d never quite gotten past the robes bit.

“Sirius is playing,” James says. He tries to lean in conspiratorially but in his intoxicated state he nearly falls into Remus’s chest. “Who’s gonna protect his honor, Moons?”

It’s a testament to how drunk he is that he’s brought up Sirius in this way at all. Their attraction is an issue that all of their friends skirt around, especially the two directly involved. Remus snorts and immediately regrets it when flames shoot out of his nose. Damn firewhiskey.

“Is Evans playing?” He asks, eyebrow cocked. Well, he tries raising one eyebrow but they both just sort of waggle back and forth.

“...no,” James lies.

Remus sighs. He has to go now. He might not need to protect Sirius’s honor or virtue or whatever, but he’ll have to protect James’s heart. Lily will crush it and James will mope and this is supposed to be a fun night.

“Alright, lets go.”

They sidle their way through the maze of partygoers to a cluster of people lounging around a faded rug. There are students from all houses playing, though there are only two Slytherins. Both with Zuzana, of course. Her Slytherin friends have become a bit of scandal in Gryffindor tower. There’s Mikkel Attenholten, a dark skinned German boy who reportedly grew up with her in Knockturn, and Pandora Yaxley, the only other person in the world as odd as Ana.

Ana herself gives Remus a cheery wave when she notices his attention. She looks quite pretty tonight. Half of her wild black curls is pinned on top of her head and her short dress brings out the purple in her eyes. They’re an odd indigo color, a dark blue that gleams violet in the light. Remus has always had a thing for eyes.

He nods back and slumps down on the floor beside Sirius. Or tries too. There’s a Hufflepuff draped over most of his lap. Remus wedges his boot between the two and kicks the boy over. He looks up, lips pulled back in affronted rage. All Remus has to do is stare for a moment and the prat is scampering out of the circle altogether.

Lycanthropy has precious few advantages. He’d be remiss not to use what little it offers.

“Moony!” Sirius cries, draping an arm around Remus’s shoulders. He smells like whiskey and bergamot and lust. Something sinister stirs in Remus’s chest. He pushes it down, down, down, with a desperately firm ‘no’. It huffs back, but obeys all the same.

“Sirius.”

“JAMES!” James cries, throwing himself onto Sirius’s other side.

A smattering of giggles takes over the circle, only subsiding when Vivienne Edgecomb shoots golden sparks out of her wand. Even Remus is not immune to the anticipation bubbling amongst them.

“Right, here’s the rules,” she says, flicking her long hair over one shoulder. “We’re doing this the muggle way. Hands up when it spins. No cheating, and anyone can say no to anyone. Any funny business and I call Longbottom over to set you straight. Deal?”

Everyone cringes. Frank Longbottom is a six foot four seventeen stone powerhouse of a wizard that makes Gryffindors and Slytherins alike tremble on the Quidditch pitch. No one wants to be sorted out by Frank Longbottom.

“Very well. I’ll start and we’ll go clockwise.”

Remus wonders if she chose clockwise so she can get through James and Sirius quicker. It won’t make a difference. They’ll make a nuisance of themselves either way and then everyone else will look to Remus for help reining them in, at which point he will subtly join in on the chaos. Well. He’ll be a subtle as a drunk teenage werewolf can be. The other drunk teenagers should provide adequate enough cover.

Edgecomb snogs an older Ravenclaw. Her friend gets another girl, which results in a heady spike of pheromonesthat sets Remus’s nose twitching. The resulting cheers and whistles draws something of an audience to the game. Brown, a sixth year Gryffindor, only kisses his potions partner. They laugh good-naturedly about it, ignoring the disappointed crowd. The next three pass by in a blur. No one seems to care for them. James is next; something terribly hilarious or hilariously terrible is bound to happen with him.

James does not disappoint. When his turn comes, he turns to poor, pitiful Lily and says, “Here’s hoping, Evans!”

Lily scowls.

“Longbottom, Potter!” Edgecomb reminds him.

“Who do you take me for?” James demands with faux incredulity. “I am a marauder and this is chaos! I’m not ‘bout to ruin such chaos. I revere the chaos. I worship the chaos. I was born to the chaos.”

“Shut up and spin the damn bottle, Potter!” Someone calls.

Remus follows the voice. It came from Ervin Brecker, whom has apparently grown complacent in his final weeks at Hogwarts. Foolish man. There are still six days remaining. A lot can happen in six days.

Thankfully, only a tame bit of chaos ensues. Everyone watches with bated breath as the wine bottle steadily loses momentum. It stops almost directly across from James, pointing at none other than Mikkel Attenholten.

He grins widely and jumps up to his knees. “Pucker up, Attenholten!”

Attenholten frowns. “Really?”

“Pointin’ to you, innit?”

“Yeah, but...you’re not into men, are you?”

James shrugs. “I’m into Lily. And it’s not like I haven’t snogged Sirius. How different can it be?”

Someone chokes on their drink. Someone else manages to sputter out a “What?!”

“Well I gotta be good for Lily, don’t I?”

That’s not how it went at all. A couple of months ago, James had gone worryingly quiet in their dorm room. When questioned, he said that if two of his best mates liked men, then maybe he did too. Remus tried to assure him that it didn’t work that way, but Sirius volunteered to be a test subject. It turned out, of course, that James is not queer in the slightest.

Lily buries her head in hands, falling over onto Alice’s shoulder. Alice, for her part, is shaking with suppressed laughter. Remus wouldn’t mind kissing Alice. She’s sweet and adorable in her new pixie cut and-....and the apple of Frank Longbottom’s eye.

Remus would rather not kiss Alice.

Attenholt raises one of his perfectly groomed brows.

“Black is on the other end of the bottle. You could very well just kiss him now.”

“Mik, I don’t think-“ Pandora begins, but Zuzana shushes her impatiently, eyes alight with glee.

James and Sirius are too far gone to realize they’re being manipulated, even when Attenholt leans in and taunts, “Do you really want to kiss a Slytherin, Potter?”

This seems to be the last straw for James. He twists to his right to face Sirius, who only shrugs.

Remus briefly wonders if he should step in. This could be potentially mortifying for the two of them. His good sense catches up with him quickly, however, and he merely takes another drink and settles back to watch his best mates make complete fools of themselves. This will be good ammunition for the rest of their sorry lives.

James winks roguishly at Lily and smirks the goofiest, least sexy smirk to ever be smirked.

“Here’s to you, Evans,” he says, and precedes to lather Sirius’s mouth in slobber.

Silence reigns as the crowd looks on in morbid fascination. There’s only the wet, unbroken sounds of exchanging bodily fluids and the broken, panting breaths of someone behind them. Disturbed, Remus glances over his shoulder. Peter is there, hunched over and clutching a hand to his ribs as he wheezes with silent laughter. Tears are streaming down his flushed cheeks. He catches Remus’s gaze, sobers for an instant, and then relapses into hysteria.

“This is why we don’t invite Slytherins to parties,” a nearby Gryffindor grumbles.

“This is exactly why we invite Slytherins to parties,” her friend counters.

Finally, James and Sirius break apart with a wet smack.

“And that’s how it’s done!” He proclaims.

A thunderous ovation answers him. He beams, the prat, looking so proud of himself. Remus has never felt so fond in his life. To be so remarkably clever, James really is an absolute fool. He can’t wait to tell Mrs. Potter about this. She’ll never let him live it down.

“Alright, now that we’ve been scarred for life, it’s your turn, Black,” Edgecomb says.

A different sort of silence follows. A tense, anticipatory silence. Who will get to snog the legendary Sirius Black?

He smirks into the silence, elegant even in his drunken state as he gives the bottle a good spin. Some poor girl sucks in a breath. Two others break out into giggles.

Suddenly, it occurs to Remus that it could be him. A heavy dread settles in his stomach, sloshing around with all the liquor. He can’t kiss Sirius. Not like this. Not here, drunk and in front of all these people. He won’t be able to play it off. Not after giving so much of himself over to Moony.

The bottle takes an eternity to slow. Such an innocuous thing to determine Remus’s life. It couldn’t have even been good wine. It’s a cheap brand that anyone can buy at a wizarding market for eleven knuts. Though Remus supposes it’s oddly fitting. Of course his life is only worth a cheap bottle of wine. It’s asking too much to be worth a bottle of Ogden’s finest.

The bottle stops and for one wild moment, Remus panics. His brain catches up with his frantic heart soon enough and he realizes that he’s staring down the wrong end. The neck of the bottle is pointed directly across from him at Zuzana Prikrylova.

“ZEUS!” Sirius bellows.

Despite the blush darkening her cheeks, her nose wrinkles as she glances at James.

“Zeus! Come here, Zeus!”

Sirius holds out his arms, his full lips stretched into a genuine smile. For a moment, jealousy rears its ugly head, that sinister beast stirring awake once more. Then Remus considers it. Considers her. Sirius may be...gratuitous with his affections, but he’s not stupid. He’s never been involved with someone that would be obsessive or dangerous.

Odd though she may be, Ana isn’t senseless. She isn’t the type to stalk him or try and slip a love potion in his morning tea. In fact, now that Remus thinks about it, she’s never acted particularly flustered around any of the Marauders, that strange night on the grounds notwithstanding. It could just be the tolerance all Gryffindors have built, but he doesn’t think so. He thinks it has something to do with the curse she carries.   


_“I thought you quit that kind of thing.”_

_“Did you quit being a werewolf?”_

The onlookers cheer as she rises and clamors to him. Sirius cradles her face in his hands, just like he did Remus at the beginning of the night. He speaks to her in a quiet rumble, words that Remus chooses not to hear, and then he’s pressing his lips to her forehead. Ana laughs and makes to pull away, but Sirius doesn’t let her budge. He lowers his head and captures her mouth with his.

Amidst the wolf whistles and cat calls, Sirius slides one of his hands into her thick curls. This close, Remus can see the moment his tongue flicks at her pink lips, the moment they part and her tongue darts out to tease his.

She did the same thing to Remus all those months ago. He’d been surprised by how playful she was, how much fun she seemed to be having. It was part of why he never sought her out after. He couldn’t bear to just be someone’s bit of fun. It’s too depressing to have a taste of what he’ll never be able to have.

They start snogging in earnest, all teeth and claws and tongue. Sirius seems to have lost himself but Ana seems to be chasing after something. She pulls at his hair and arches into his chest, eliciting a deep moan, and the suddenly goes stiff. She goes limp just as abruptly. Sirius catches her easily, his swollen lips pulled down in confusion.

Then the screams begin.

High-pitched, bone-curdling, terrified screams that raise the hairs on Remus’s arms.

Remus calls on Moony, on that dark presence pacing in his chest. A fierce calmness overtakes him. It brightens colors and sharpens sounds and differentiates every scent in the room. It is him and not quite him, or perhaps simply a new version him, that raises his wand and cries out, “Umbraligo!”

Dense black shadows pour from his cypress wand. They immediately flow into a perfect circle, entrapping Sirius and Ana in a cocoon of silence. In the same moment, the music cuts off with a jarring scratch of vinyl. The speakers hum in the shocked silence.

Frank Longbottom shoulders his way through the audience from just behind where Alice was sitting.

“Everyone stay calm! Hawke, go fetch-“

His orders are cut off by gasps when a glowing silver wolf appears in front of Remus. He ignores them to give his own orders.

“Albus Dumbledore. Zuzana needs you in the Divination Tower. Come quickly.”

He taps the wolf with his wand and pauses long enough to ensure that it vanishes.

“Was that a patronus?!” Edgecomb blurts.

Remus ignores her, ignores them all, in favor of stepping into the thick barrier. Apparently, he’d accidentally trapped James inside too. He is kneeling next to Sirius, both of them staring down at Ana’s prone figure. She’s quiet now, but her eyes have rolled back in her head and tears are smudging dark makeup down her cheeks. She twitches in short, tight movements as if following someone they can’t see.

“Has she said anything?” Remus asks.

Sirius shoves his long hair behind his ears. “Not really. Just my name.”

“Will she say anything?” James asks softly.

“I doubt it,” Remus says. “She told me it wasn’t as simple as prophecies and tea leaves.”

“ _Of course I don’t_ know! _I can never_ know. _I don’t just put the puzzle together. I have to make the pieces, all of them different ways.”_

“When did she tell you that?” James wonders distractedly. He jumps when Ana mumbles out a faint “hairy”.

“She came to me in November to warn me about something.”

“ _Something terrible is going to happen to Sirius Black.”_

Sirius frowns. “I thought she was acting weirder than usual. She kept staring at us. I thought she might be trying to work up the nerve to ask one of us out.”

“What did she warn you about? Did she See something?”

“I dunno. I don’t think it’s so-“

He’s cut off by sudden mad cackling. Ana is shaking from her laughter on the floor. For an instant, Remus is both relieved and infuriated to realize it was all a prank, but her next words turn his blood cold.

“I killed Sirius Black,” she sings, giggling. “I killed Sirius Black!”

Bile rises in his stomach. Her eyes are still white and her skin is just as pale, as a horrid, gleeful voice that is not her own speaks.

“You coming to get me?!”

A pause as a voice they cannot hear answers.

“Aaaah, did you love him then, itty baby Potter?”

Remus can sense the other two looking at him and one another, but he can’t tear his gaze away from Ana. Another unnatural twitch jerks her body and her face smooths out into its previous frown, her eyes fluttering from side to side.

“It’s like the scene’s changing,” he murmurs. 

Suddenly, there is a shift in the atmosphere. A power almost unfathomable in its ferocity and depth brushes against the wall of shadow. He knows, deep in his bones, that it is Dumbledore requesting entrance and that it is only out of polite warning that the spell wasn’t ripped away all at once.

He waves his wand at the wall, creating a hole wide enough for a man to step through. Sure enough the Headmaster squeezes in, every inch the deadly warlock even in his cow print dressing gown. Remus immediately lowers his eyes to the ground.

Dumbledore’s fierce gaze softens as he sees Ana’s body stiff at their feet.

“How long has she been like this?” He demands, lowering himself beside Remus.

Remus immediately drops to his feet. It goes against every instinct in his body to stand above someone so much more powerful.

“Since my patronus.” He hesitates, licking his lips nervously. “I didn’t know what to do. I knew nobody can know, so I conjured this barrier and sent for you.”

“You did the right thing,” Professor Dumbledore assures him. “It is a lucky thing she was near someone accustomed to keeping secrets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has she said anything?”

All three of them tense. Dumbledore’s shoulder droops in something like disappointment, but he begins waving his wand and murmuring spells.

“Not like you would think,” James says. The situation seems to have sobered him immensely. “It was almost like she was possessed. Like someone was speaking with her voice.”

“It was right scary is what it was,” Sirius grumbles.

Pink light encases and then slowly sinks into Ana. Her limbs relax one by one.

“What sent her into this state? What was she doing?”

Sirius clears his throat. “We were playing spin the bottle and I landed on her.”

“Was it before or after you kissed?” He asks, still casting a barrage of spells. Remus doesn’t recognize a single one.

“During.”

Dumbledore hums.

“She-...I think she saw my death.”

Dumbledore’s composure slips. The spells stop and he looks over at Sirius with a stricken expression. Sirius squirms uncomfortably under the attention.

“Sounded like a long way off,” he says, trying for nonchalance and failing miserably. “Apparently a baby Potter was there.”

That only seems to deepen Dumbledore’s concern. He bends closer to Ana, examining her closely. Then, with a great sigh, he places his wand on the floor and covers her eerie eyes with a wrinkled hand.

“Sir?” James asks uncertainly.

“I fear my wand will only exacerbate her trance. It has seen far too much death as well.”

Remus fights against the panic in his chest. This is Dumbledore. Dumbledore would never hurt any of them. He didn’t even hurt Grindelwald.

“Will it help if you use one of ours?”

The headmaster pauses, looking up at James in surprise.

“I’m flattered, Mr. Potter, but I hope it proves unnecessary.”

He turns back to Ana, almost tenderly rearranging his hand, and begins to change under his breath. A strange, old magic rises in the air, almost as old as what brings on Remus’s transformation. It isn’t anywhere near as sharp or hungry. This has a soft, warm feeling that soothes Moony’s restlessness. 

A choking noise escapes Ana, startling the boys out of their own trances. Dumbledore lets out a sigh of relief and leans back to give her some space. Her eyes flutter open very slowly. She frowns at the dark barrier, jolting upright, and then freezes at the sight of Dumbledore. He raises his hands in supplication.

“Zuzana, do you require medical assistance?”

Her eyes dart from his face, to his hands, to the wand beside his knee. She cringes and scoots away from it, knocking into Sirius. She looks over, her hand already going to her wand, and nearly falls over when she sees who it is.

“You alright, Zeus?” He asks, mirroring the professor’s stance.

Ana makes a strangled sobbing sound. She scrambles away, almost onto Dumbledore’s lap. The headmaster is unperturbed. He seems to be holding back from reaching up to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance.

“I’m sorry, Zu,” he whispers.

Her lower lip trembles.

“Do you want me to leave?”

She shakes her head in a jerky movement.

“Okay, then. Are you okay? Are you in pain or anything?”

“No,” she croaks out. “Water.”

“I can do water!” He pulls out his wand and conjures a quick glass and fills it with a charm. “Here you go.”

Ana reaches for it, but her hands are too shaky to do much else than hold it. Most of it ends up on the front of her dress when she lifts it to her lips.

“Zuzana,” Dumbledore says gently. “Poppy can treat your tremors if you allow us to escort you to the Hospital Wing.”

“No. I just-....” she takes a deep, shaking breath to fight against another sin. “I need a moment.”

Dumbledore nods and respectfully turns his attention to the barrier. Sirius, however, has never been had an ounce of tact and slides over to Ana and gathers her into his arms. Her shoulders stiffen, but after a moment she burrows into his chest.

They sit in silence for a while, each of them preoccupied with their own worries. Remus is so immersed in reliving their conversation on the grounds he nearly jumps when Ana finally speaks. It is quiet and muffled and it’s a miracle even he manages to make the words out.

“I saw your soul.”

Sirius pauses in stroking her wild curls.

“A hundred of them,” she whispers. “They kept swooping down like they were taking sips.” She pulls back and studies him with water eyes. He stares back, letting her work through her muddled thoughts. “You were just lying there and you looked so...you looked so bad and they just kept coming and the boy was crying and they were drinking from him too and then your soul came out.”

She raises her hand and presses her tapered fingers against his lips.

“It just came out. A shimmering blue ball.”

Dumbledore shifts nervously. “Zuzana,” he begins hesitantly. “Would you mind sharing the rest?”

Ana scoots away from Sirius, staring down at the conjured cup in her hands. Just when Remus is sure she won’t say anything, she clears her throat.

“It came in bursts. Some were to quick to understand, but they were all about Sirius and Regulus and the Potter boy.”

“The Potter boy?” Dumbledore hedges.

At this, she finally looks up, meeting the Headmaster’s gaze for the first time. 

“This war is going to go on for a very long time, Albus.”

Dumbledore shrinks into himself, his shoulders sagging and the lines on his face more prominent than ever. His piercing gaze falls to the knobby wand resting innocently on the floor.

“Death comes for us all in the end,” she says in a strange, reassuring tone.

Dumbledore sighs, out of relief of all things.

“Then he will die.”

Ana lowers her gaze, scowling at his wand.

“But what if the price is to steep?”

James scoffs incredulously. “How could it be if it means the death of the Dark Lord?”

“There are times when we must choose between what is easy and what is right,” Dumbledore intones gravely.

Ana laughs, a hollow, unsettling sound. “What if the price for this dark lord is another one?”

A foreboding disquiet settles over their little crowd, seeping under their skin and into their bones. War is coming; a long, brutal, deadly war.

Remus supposes that at least he’s used to having a shit life. Prongs won’t know what hit him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Side note: I’ve recently realized that men’s scents aren’t popular in literature. Women always smell like vanilla or jasmine or strawberries and men just smell woodsy or musky. So I googled men’s cologne and apparently bergamot is a type of citrus commonly found in them. The more you know!


End file.
